| 1. |
- Agndal, Henrik
(författare)
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Internationalisation as a process of strategy and change : A study of 16 Swedish industrial SMEs
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis reports a study of the internationalisation processes of 16 industrial SMEs located in the county of Jönköping (Sweden). More specifically, it identifies changes in international strategies, identifies reasons why changes are undertaken and discusses how these changes can be understood when placed in the context of the internationalisation process.The findings show that industrial SME managers tend to stress the importance of foreign sales but are often much more reluctant to buy products abroad. This means that while changes in foreign sales market strategy occur frequently in many firms, the process of foreign sourcing market expansion unfolds more slowly, involving fewer markets. The findings also indicate preferences for a low degree of complexity in foreign sales and purchasing. Therefore, industrial SMEs typically become involved in more complex ventures like foreign subsidiaries only when this is perceived as necessary, for example when there is risk of losing a foreign market.Mostly, changes in industrial SMEs’ international strategies are undertaken as responses to external opportunities, such as unsolicited orders. Changes much less frequently find their origin in internal initiatives. This pattern appears to pervade throughout the internationalisation process, even if a more critical attitude towards potential changes arises with increasing experience.
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| 2. |
- Ahl, Helene J.
(författare)
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The Making of the Female Entrepreneur : A Discourse Analysis of Research Texts on Women’s Entrepreneurship
- 2002
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Departing from a social constructionist understanding of gender, this thesis examines how the female entrepreneur is constructed in research articles about women’s entrepreneurship. It finds that even if the texts celebrate women’s entrepreneurship, they do it in such a way as to recreate women’s secondary position in society.Building on Foucault’s theory of discourse, the thesis analyzes the discursive practices by which this result was achieved. These practices include certain assumptions that are taken for granted about women, men, business, work, and family. One of these assumptions is that men and women must be different. Despite research results to the contrary, many texts insist that the genders are different and construct three kinds of arguments in support of this. One is making a mountain out of a molehill, i.e. stressing small differences while ignoring similarities. Another is the self-selected woman, which proclaims women entrepreneurs as unusual women. The third is called the good mother and consists of molding an alternative, feminine model of entrepreneurship while leaving the dominant model intact. These arguments reproduce the idea of essential gender differences and the idea of the woman as the weaker sex.The discursive practices also include certain ontological and epistemological assumptions, which are questioned in the thesis. In addition, they contain disciplinary regulations as well as writing and publishing practices that reinforce the discourse. The practices and the ensuing research results are moreover dependent on the particular context in which the articles are produced. This means that their results and conclusions cannot be transferred to other contexts uncritically.By discussing these practices, the thesis opens the way for alternative ways of theorizing and researching women’s entrepreneurship. Suggestions for alternative research practices include the addition of institutional aspects to the research agenda, such as labor market structure, family policy, and legislation. The thesis also suggests a shift in epistemological position – from gender as something that is given, to gender as something that is produced.
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| 3. |
- Akhter, Naveed
(författare)
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Family business portfolios : Enduring entrepreneurship and exit strategies
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation examines how family business portfolios endure across time and investigates the entrepreneurial strategies that they engage in. The goal of this dissertation is addressed through five appended papers in which I have argued for the importance of business families owning multiple firms, that is, portfolio entrepreneurship. Portfolio entrepreneurship plays a central role in economic development as it is a prevalent phenomenon in developed and emerging economies. However, despite its importance, there is currently very little research on portfolio entrepreneurship, especially in the context of family firms.In so doing, I study nine business families owning multiple businesses in Pakistan. I conducted in-depth interviews with family owners and employees; the interviews were supplemented with other sources of data such as observations and archival material. When studying questions such as how a portfolio is built-up across generations, how and why business families exit and, when they exit, which businesses they choose to exit from, I draw on insights from the literature on portfolio entrepreneurship, business exit, family firms, socioemotional wealth, sensemaking, compassion and social identity theory in the five papers.The dissertation addresses the calls for studies on portfolio entrepreneurship in the context of family firms by examining the process through which a portfolio is constructed by studying performance and exit related issues. In other words, it examines both the growth and the contraction of portfolios. The study offers several contributions. First, it contributes to studies on enduring entrepreneurship by investigating how business families last across time despite encountering difficult situations and declining business. Second, the study contributes to the portfolio entrepreneurship literature by elucidating how portfolios are built across generations and the roles of both growth and contractions while addressing processual and contextual issues.Third, the study contributes to the business exit literature by looking at the exit process in a family business context and exploring multiple exits. This isunique, as it is, to the best of my knowledge, the first study on business exits looking at multiple exit in the context of family firms. Fourth, the study also contributes to the literature on family firms by exploring how and why business families refrain from exiting from their core legacy business and how their emotions influence the exit process.Finally, the study contributes to context-related issues. The study adds to the literature on contextualization and addresses the call for more context-specific studies in entrepreneurship scholarship. This dissertation is focused on context-based factors considering the spatial and social context, where the former has been undertaken by taking an emerging economy and country context as the setting, while the latter refers to the relational and emotional ties within family firms. In addition to its theoretical contributions, this dissertation has important implications for practice. The dissertation brings to the fore some promising and unique ways in which entrepreneurship endures across time and context through the transgenerational transmission of entrepreneurship and insights into how business families behave in a declining business situation. Additionally, this study offers insights for family owners and managers on how to address the dilemma of continued entrepreneurship, that is, how to encourage and foster enduring entrepreneurship in organizations, in particular in the context of family firms.
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| 4. |
- Almlöf, Hanna
(författare)
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Bolagsorganens reglering och dess ändamålsenlighet : En aktiebolagsrättslig studie om ägarledda bolag
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation discusses the regulation of organisation in limited companies from a closely held company perspective. The overall aim of the study is to evaluate whether the goals of the Swedish Companies Act are fulfilled by the current regulation on company organisation and decision taking organs when applied to closely held owner managed companies. The study is carried out in the field of Company Law, but the analysis also includes contributions from Regulation Theory and Law and Economics.To fulfil the overall aim, the study sets up two main research tasks. The first research task is to identify the goals of the Swedish Companies Act and what regulative tools that are available to achieve these goals. The second research task is to investigate the current regulation of organization and decision taking organs of a company. Focus is placed on how owner managed companies can be flexible in their decision taking activity, both within the company organs and in other arenas outside the firm such an owners meeting or family council. When these two main research tasks have been performed, the overall aim of this study can be fulfilled. The evaluation of the Companies Act reveals that the legislator’s prioritisation of legislative goal can be challenged. It may be argued that the goal to lower the transaction costs of the parties can be enhanced without diminishing any other goals. In accordance with this conclusion, the final research task of this study is to give recommendations de lege ferenda on how the regulation can be developed in order to achieve a higher degree of reaching the goals of the Companies Act.The conclusions argued for in this study are related to future regulation of the organisation of companies limited by shares. Therefore, the conclusions are aimed towards policy makers. However, the analysis within the second research task is of relevance for owner managers and their advisors on the subject of how they can be flexible in their decision taking activity, both within the company organs and in other arenas such as an owner’s meeting or a family council.
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| 5. |
- Arshad, Nadia
(författare)
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Backers’ crowdfunding journey – An engagement perspective
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Crowdfunding refers to accumulating small sums of money from the general public through the Internet for a collective larger amount to fund small or medium-sized ventures in exchange for some benefit. The contribution can be as a donation (for no material reward), a purchase (for getting a reward in return), debt (to get money returned), or equity (for sharing future profit). The three main actors in crowdfunding are the initiators (the venturers), the backers (the crowd members who fund), and the crowdfunding platforms (the intermediaries). The crowdfunding campaign’s survival and success depends on engagement from the crowd. Using a qualitative research method, this dissertation aimed to understand the backers’ engagement with four crowdfunding campaigns selected from the leading crowdfunding platform, Kickstarter, through processual analysis. Buildingon the integrative framework of service-dominant logic, engagement, and customer journey, the underlying mechanism of the backers’ engagement at the personal (micro) and interpersonal (meso) levels were explored. Based on the motivation and contribution pattern, the backers were segmented into four engagement roles: benefactors, patrons, shoppers, and utilisers. A deeper analysis showed how the engagement intensity, duration, valence, and engagement properties shaped over time across these roles. The insights from the findings in the dissertation carry managerial and policy implications.
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| 6. |
- Askenmalm, Fredrika
(författare)
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Hur mjölk i tanken blir kronor på banken : Bondförnuftets rationalitet
- 2024
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Lantbrukare har under senare år ofta hörts framföra klagomål om att den administrativa bördan blivit allt tyngre vad gäller rapportering och ansökningar som ska göras till olika myndigheter. Tidigare forskning framställer det som att den administrativa bördan skulle kunna utsträckas till att också gälla redovisning, så som bokföring, kalkylering och budgetering. Detta då det beskrivs som att lantbrukare varken förstår eller använder redovisning för att sköta sitt lantbruk. Tidigare forskning tycks dock bortse från att lantbrukare ofta tillämpar en annan form av logik än den som förutsätts gälla inom redovisningsforskning. Det verkar också förutsättas att lantbrukarna ska kunna förstå och använda den redovisningsterminologi som finns inom forskningsvärlden trots att lantbrukarna ofta saknar utbildning inom redovisning. Mot denna bakgrund undersöker denna avhandling hur lantbrukare förstår och använder redovisning.Avhandlingen bygger på det grundläggande teoretiska perspektivet att se redovisning som ett språk för att på detta sätt förklara lantbrukarnas förståelse av redovisning. Avhandlingen bygger vidare på familjeföretagsforskning, speciellt socioemotional wealth (SEW), och beslutsteori för att förklara lantbrukarnas användning av redovisningsinformation.Den empiriska studien är inspirerad av grundad teori. Det empiriska materialet utgörs främst av intervjuer med mjölkbönder i Jönköpings län. Även intervjuer med rådgivare och bankmän och vissa sekundärdata har utgjort underlag för avhandlingen.Resultatet av undersökningen visar att lantbrukare har större kunskaper vad gäller redovisning än vad tidigare forskning indikerat. Delvis kan detta förklaras av att lantbrukare använder en annan terminologi än vad som vanligtvis används inom redovisningsforskning när de beskriver redovisning. Mjölkföretag drivs vanligen som familjeföretag och denna avhandling visar på en mycket stark familjeförankring i dessa företag. Det innebär att mjölkföretag ibland (speciellt vad gäller fastigheten) prioriterar annat än finansiella mål, vilket ofta kopplas samman med en intuitiv beslutsstil. Inom redovisning förutsätts generellt att finansiella mål är eftersträvansvärda. Lantbrukarnas sätt att se på redovisning påverkar också hur den används. Även om de förstår och använder redovisning är det inte säkert att den används på det mest vinstmaximerande sättet. I stället kan SEW vara det som prioriteras. Användning av redovisning anpassas efter den situation lantbrukaren befinner sig i. Vissa delar av redovisningen ses och förstås som speglingar av verkligheten eller som framåtriktade ledtrådar. När lantbrukare förstår redovisningen på så vis, uppfattas den som användbar för beslutsfattande. Andra delar av redovisningen ses som regelföljande, eller ibland till och med som helt frikopplad från själva verksamheten. Detta gäller framför allt redovisning till Skatteverket och Jordbruksverket. Dessa redovisningar används inte för beslut, men de är ändå rationellt utformade för att uppnå bästa möjliga utfall (skatteutjämning eller jordbruksstöd).
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| 7. |
- Aygören, Huriye
(författare)
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Entrepreneurial identity formation-in-practice : Immigrant women entrepreneurs' lived practices and experiences within gender, ethnicity and class relations
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation, comprising four appended papers, examines what entrepreneurs actually do in order to manage the intrinsic social complexity pertaining to relations of power and culture involved in entrepreneurial undertakings. The studies share the common interest in probing into the ways inwhich fundamental social divisions and conflicts, namely gender, ethnicity and class are inscribed into the entrepreneurs through the organization of difference (Ashcraft, 2012) and how these shape and are shaped by the identity construction processes of individual entrepreneurs. The thesis provides an empirical account of entrepreneurial identity formation and its implications on shaping differential degree and the forms of entrepreneurial agency exerted by entrepreneurs by drawing on two sets of empirical materials generated through life story narratives of seventeen immigrant women entrepreneurs and some particular family business members with Turkish origin, in their involvement with entrepreneurial practices in Sweden. In overall, the thesis approximates to the notion of the individual entrepreneur in identity terms. Three major theoretical approaches, including practice theory, identity work and the feminist intersectionality framework, lay the groundwork for thinking about the relational and contextual foundation of the individual and associated identity construction processes intraversing the contexts at different temporal and spatial scales, namely individual, organizational, familial and societal.The thesis responds to the call for relational analysis examining the entanglement of material and symbolic resources and practices to draw a more rounded picture of entrepreneurship (Tatli, Vassilopoulou, Özbilgin, Forson, & Slutskaya, 2014). It adds to this debate by highlighting the identification processes of entrepreneurs, especially of those who have been historically and relatively marginalized in their societies. This thesis connects with studies emphasizing the socio-culturally constructed, relational and contextual nature of entrepreneurship and contributes to bridging the gap between two bifurcated streams of research in entrepreneurship-constructionist approaches, e.g., discursive/ narrative accounts with practice based perspectives. I emphasize the importance of considering both complex identification processes for the benefit of practice-based analysis and material practices and resources to the greater advantage of constructionist accounts. Throughout my thesis, I suggest that the discursive and material aspects of agency and structures are inseparable. In entrepreneurship, it is imperative to transcend symbolic and material boundaries. This way, the thesis provides complementary insights to cultural studies of entrepreneurship which emphasize access either to material or cultural representations.My first contribution concerns the generation of rich empirical accounts ofimmigrant women entrepreneurs in the particular context of migration encompassing the two cultural scenes of Turkey, where the immigrants came from, and Sweden, where they live and enterprise. The studies in the thesis demonstrate that immigrant women entrepreneurs and immigrant family members have used creative agency to sustain their struggles of entrepreneurial identity formation and capital accumulation and have effected social change indifferent terms. By combining two streams of inquiries, which have usually been undertaken separately, studying cultural representations and what an entrepreneur would do with these representations with a focus on identity formations, the thesis contributes to the reflexive entrepreneurship scholarship by examining the entrepreneurs’ own responses to hegemonic discourses where a complex set of negotiations and diverse forms of entrepreneurship could be drawn. This forms my second contribution. Finally, the analysis also leads to a discussion of processual issues, which amount to the relative advantage (privilege) and disadvantage (marginalization) in the field of entrepreneurship. My studies suggest that inequalities do not have a static and spatial position but are a dynamic and accumulated process that defines access, mobility and investment across different fields of activities made possible by the diverse histories and practices of entrepreneurs and relevant constituents.
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| 8. |
- Baboukardos, Diogenis, 1981-
(författare)
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Essays on the market valuation implications of mandatory corporate reporting
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The purpose of this dissertation is to enrich understanding on the market valuation implications of mandatory financial and non-financial reporting beyond and in relation to traditional accounting information. It is comprised of four individual essays each of which examines a different, and to some extent internationally unique, jurisdiction that can best serve the particular purpose of the essay as well as the overarching purpose of the dissertation.The starting point of this empirical inquiry is the value relevance of purchased goodwill under IFRS and the moderating role that different levels of compliance with IFRS mandatory disclosures play on its market valuation. Similar to the first essay, the second essay focuses on traditional accounting information (specifically book value of equity and earnings) and examines potential differences on its market valuation before and after the mandatory introduction of an integrated reporting approach. The third essay focuses on mandatory carbon emissions reporting and compares its valuation relevance when such reporting is mandated by regulation vis-à-vis when it is voluntary. Finally, the fourth essay examines the market valuation interplay between mandatory financial and non-financial disclosures.This dissertation intends to be of particular relevance first; to the accounting academic community which acknowledges that mandatory disclosures are not well understood and it calls for further research on how users of annual reports view mandatory disclosures and second; to accounting regulators. Empirical research on the value relevance of corporate reporting can provide useful insights into questions of interest to regulators because its research questions are often motivated by broader questions raised by these non-academic constituents. The dissertation in hand has similar motivations.
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| 9. |
- Backman, Mikaela
(författare)
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Regions, Human Capital and New Firm Formation
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis shows the importance of human capital at the individual, firm, and regional level through its effects on returns to education, firm productivity and new firm formation. The thesis further shows the importance of banks as a determinant for new firm formation at the local level. The thesis comprises of five chapters, one introductory chapter followed by four independent chapters, empirical in their nature.The second chapter in the thesis, Regional Variations of Returns to Education, analyses individuals’ return to education in different regional contexts. The results show that returns to education differ according to type of location. Conclusively, the often-assumed hypothesis of equal returns to education for all regions in a country can be rejected. The second chapter, Human Capital and Firm Performance, uses a firm perspective and tests how human capital, within and outside the firm, influences firm productivity. Results show that both types of human capital are positively associated with firm productivity. Overall, it is firm attributes that explain most of the productivity variance. The third chapter, Accessibility to Human Capital and New Firm Formation, compares how human capital influences new firm formation in different regional categories. Overall, it is the access to human capital at the local and intra-regional level that increases the new firm formation rate. However, the influence from human capital differs across the regional categories and their position in the hierarchical system. The last chapter, Banks and New Firm Formation, analyses how different characteristics of the local bank sector influence new firm formation. The average size of bank branches per capita, independent banks, bank branches per capita and the competitive level are positively associated with local startups.
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| 10. |
- Bagley, Mark
(författare)
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The birth, life and death of firms in industrial clusters : The role of knowledge networks
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Three single-authored papers in this thesis will explore the role of knowledge and information in industrial clusters; and specifically, how knowledge plays a role inthe emergence and persistence of clusters. This thesis places a major emphasis on spinoff firms.The first paper uses a computational model to describe how patterns of industrial clustering arise with respect to the size of an initial firm when measured in terms of innovation. Technology is qualitatively described using a code set mapped on a cognitive space. Assuming inheritability of networking skills, I seek to model how the size of an initial firm influences future patterns of cluster formation through a model of technical cognition and a mimicking of creativity. Replicating the stylized facts of entrepreneurial cluster formation, we find initial firm size has a lasting impact on clustering patterns through its influence on the level of cognitive distance of the underlying agents.The second paper turns to networks as a tool of analysis to explore the relationship between a spinoff’s network and its geographical location within an industrial cluster. Although recent literature infers that the transmission of organizational attributes in industrial clusters is accomplished via passive network ties, this has not been directly measured. After controlling for firm size, parent size and age, we find that there a statistically significant and negative relationship between network efficiency and geographic distance to a cluster’s core.The third and final paper extends the use of networks to examine how knowledge flows, as conduits for routines and skills, affect the survival prospects for firms in industrial clusters. We consider knowledge transmission via two channels: those from inherited linkages and those from geographic proximity. It is found that a firm’s historical links formed through parent-spinoff networks have a significant impact on survival, which differ depending on the motivations of the entrepreneur. Moreover, the gains with respect to location are found to be nonlinear.
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| 11. |
- Balkow, Jenny
(författare)
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In the middle : on sourcing from China and the role of the intermediary
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In the past three decades China’s rapid transition from a closed economy to become the factory of the world has astonished economists all over the world. Surveys among sourcing practitioners show that China is the most interesting market for sourcing and research points to lower costs as the main reason. This dissertation is an exploratory study of the role of the intermediary for Swedish small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) that source from China. Three questions are discussed. The first question concerns why Swedish SMEs choose to source from China. Although costs are a major factor for the companies, it is usually other triggers that cause the change in strategy, such as management interest or pressure from a large customer. The second research question concerns how Swedish SMEs choose to source from China and how the role of the intermediary is related to this process. The study shows that finding a good supplier is not difficult. The companies use informal channels, references and sometimes unorthodox methods such as following the supplier of the raw material to find suppliers that deliver high quality goods. The problem is however to maintain a steady quality and on time delivery which is why intermediaries are introduced late in the relationship. The cases in this study show example of five different intermediated strategies; Direct, Service,Traditional, RepO and FICE/WFOE. The traditional intermediated strategy is the only strategy where there is little or no relation between buyer and supplier, whereas the other four strategies involve different degrees of interaction between all three actors in the dyad; the buyer, the supplier and the intermediary. The third research question concerned the role of the intermediary. The study shows that the respondents are influenced by their structural view on what role the different forms of intermediaries may take. Although the respondents discuss the importance of having a long-term view on the relationship with the supplier they continuously allow intermediaries to enter the relationship on a short-term basis for quality control. These quality control centers (QC) commonly work on a fixed commission based on services that has to be specified. When the buyers are trying to change their strategy to look for an intermediary with higher involvement they usually turn to internal intermediaries (i.e. subsidiaries). When deciding on a long term intermediary the buyer usually looks for competences that supplement their own knowledge – that is Chinese language, good knowledge of the Chinese market but also technological competence. What the western owned intermediaries in China stresses however is the need to find intermediaries to supplement the suppliers’ competences, so that they are able to translate the needs of the buyer’s customer and becomes a physical reminder that they are sent from the buyer. The case of QC, shows that if a company let the relationship with the intermediary develop through interaction they can become just as involved. The study is based on interviews with key informants at Swedish SMEs andat different types of intermediaries in China. The empirical data are presented infive themes developed through an iterative process of theoretical studies anddata collection. The first two themes are directly related to the first tworesearch questions. The third theme focuses on the sourcing process andactivities of four small Swedish design companies. The fourth theme displayshow the intermediaries in China discuss their role. Finally, the fifth theme pictures the supply chain of one focal company at five points in time when they are in the process of changing their supply chain to increase transparency.
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| 12. |
- Banerjee, Anup
(författare)
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The role of the board chair : Changing expectations and hybrid organizations
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The purpose of this dissertation is to enhance our understanding of the changing role of the board chair and what this means for hybrid organizations and their board work. Historically, the role of the boards and their chairs evolved around safeguarding shareholders’ financial interests. Whilst this responsibility persists, boards are increasingly expected to embrace societal issues in board governance discussions and to rethink performance measurement systems to incorporate the social impacts generated by their organizations. To navigate these challenges, boards are encouraged to adopt hybrid board governance systems that strike a balance between financial and social mission targets. Board chairs can guide boards to secure such a hybrid outlook, but we lack academic insights on this role beyond financial performance. Systematically reviewing four decades of research, the first article of the dissertation demonstrates the need and opportunities for considering divergent stakeholder interests and contextual factors influencing the role of the board chair. Building on this, the second article engages with board chairs and general secretaries in social hybrid organizations and unearths different board-specific and field level challenges that currently hinder boards from implementing social impact measurements. Subsequently, the third article discusses how adopting a qualitative, engaged scholarship approach can generate practice informed research, contributing new understanding for boards and their chairs. Together, these insights offer implications for theory and practice and promote an agenda for future research that embraces a social purpose beyond profit maximization.
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| 13. |
- Bjerke, Lina
(författare)
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Knowledge flows across space and firms
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation consists of four separate papers and an introductory chapter. The four papers can be read independently of each other but are held together by concepts around embodied knowledge: knowledge embodied in products and embodied knowledge flows. Thus the papers mainly contribute to the empirical literature on firm and regional knowledge. The rapid growth of knowledge-based industries is one of the prominent features of post-industrialism and economic growth in the industrialised part of the world. The first paper investigates the residential choice of Swedish university graduates after graduation. It also analyses what factors make them move away from their graduation region. In addition to individual characters such as age and gender, there are also regional characteristics that can either retain graduates or make them choose another residence region. The results of this paper show that large and growing regions are good at keeping their graduates but are also good at attracting graduates from other regions. The second paper examines what regional characteristics are preferable attributes in order to renew regional exports in the manufacturing sector with export products from other regions. The results indicate that to do so, regions need a specialised export support system and a large amount of sector-related knowledge. The third paper deals with the issue of how industries and regions absorb new knowledge. Focusing on the role of regional high-quality import flows, the results of this paper show that imports play an important role in regional high-quality export renewal. The fourth paper investigates how creative labour inflow affect the productivity in firms in knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS). Labour inflow bring new knowledge and increase firm productivity but only if the incoming knowledge is firm-related, which means that the firm can absorb this new knowledge and incorporate and add it into the existing knowledge stock.
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| 14. |
- Blombäck, Anna, 1975-
(författare)
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Supplier brand image - a catalyst for choice : Expanding the B2B brand discourse by studying the role corporate brand image plays in the selection of subcontractors
- 2005
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis discusses brands and branding in a B2B context by investigating the role corporate brand image plays during the selection of subcontractors and, furthermore, how subcontractors might pursue branding as an active communication strategy. The background for these questions can be found in the evolving topics of corporate communications and B2B branding.The empirical parts focus on how buyers and sellers representing nine companies in the subcontractor context describe different phases and processes included in sales and purchasing.The results indicate that subcontractor corporate brand image can play different roles depending on the buyers’ situation. The type of product and buy class, in addition to the availability of time, known subcontractors and information sources, prove to have an impact on buyer behaviour and, consequently, the role played by corporate brand image. The analysis of subcontractor branding reveals that, although the brand concept is not in focus, branding activities can be identified. However, it also indicates that the reality of subcontractor branding is not in compliance with the theory on corporate branding and communications, which might be criticised for giving a too straightforward approach to the introduction of integrated and corporate-wide communications management.
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| 15. |
- Boers, Börje
(författare)
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Organizational identity construction in family businesses a dualities perspective
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation is about organizational identity construction with a dualities perspective. By taking a dualities perspective the focus shifts from assuming that organizational identity actually is in place towards organizational identity construction where identities are socially constructed. A dualities perspective is very suitable for studying family business where family and business are seen as interdependent and interconnected forming a duality. Family business is an identity statement. Family business identities are constructed by stakeholders by managing a set of dualities. Dualities cause tensions because of the dual poles. These tensions need to be balanced in order to draw on both poles and maintain the family business identities.In an empirical study of two media organizations dualities of informality/formality, independence-dependence, historic paths-new paths, and commercial-journalistic are used to understand how stakeholders balance the tensions in these dualities and thereby construct organizational identities. The study reveals the central role of owning family members in organizational identity construction. It is important to balance interests between owning family members and generations. Otherwise it is possible that tensions develop between owners which can endanger the organization.The dualities perspective broadens studies on organizational identity construction as it accounts for the peculiarities of family businesses. I argue that these dualities are basis for constructing organizational identities that require stakeholders to work with managing the inherent tensions in the dualities. This means that owning family members and organizational members are continuously involved in constructing organizational identities when managing the dualities.For the organizational identity literature, the study offers a focus on the processes of organizational identity construction in the most common business organization, i.e. family businesses. Owning families play an eminent role in processes of organizational identity construction which future research should consider. Owning family members can initiate or trigger organizational identity construction processes because they are considered as role models by other stakeholders.Based on my findings I recommend owning families to consider that being a family business is an identity statement implying that other stakeholders will consider them as role model whether they like it or not. Therefore owning family members should devote attention to manage dualities and balance inherent tensions. Then being a family business can be advantageous because they can draw on both family and business dimensions.
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| 16. |
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| 17. |
- Brundin, Ethel
(författare)
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Emotions in Motion : The Strategic Leader in a Radical Change Process
- 2002
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis offers an emotion perspective to the field of strategic change and leadership. Through a longitudinal study, following two strategic leaders in a real time setting of a radical change process, this study shows that emotions are all-embracing within such a process. The findings stress that strategic leaders are very emotionally committed and tied to the strategy of a company and feel personal responsibility for its progress. Emotions evolve in daily interaction and are produced and reproduced in this context. They arise as a means to understand and relate to the on-going process and as a means to explicitly emphasise and stress the importance of different aspects of the change as well.The results of this study shows that emotions can be related directly to the change process where they serve as driving forces or restraining forces and as indirect driving or restraining forces in relation to the strategic intent. Furthermore, the co-production of emotions between the strategic leader and other organisational members has power implications such as power gain or power drain for the strategic leader, and thereby the strategic leadership. Emotions have also been proven to serve as constructors of emotion sediments, good-mood-setters and bad-mood-setters within the process.Methodologically, this study opens up for further research on emotions. Through a series of micro-processes, the strategic leaders of this study have contributed by helping out with conversations prior to and after meetings and by offering their personal diary notes. Furthermore, a suggested classification of emotions is made in connection to a radical change process.
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| 18. |
- Brunninge, Olof
(författare)
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Organisational Self-understanding and the Strategy Process : Strategy Dynamics in Scania and Handelsbanken
- 2005
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis investigates the role of organisational self-understanding in strategy processes. The concept of organisational self-understanding denotes members’ understanding of their organisation’s identity. The study illustrates that strategy processes in companies are processes of self-understanding. During strategy making, strategic actors engage in the interpretation of their organisation’s identity. This self-understanding provides guidance for strategic action while it at the same time implies understanding strategic action from the past. Organisational self-understanding is concerned with the maintenance of institutional integrity. In order to achieve this, those aspects of self-understanding that have become particularly institutionalised need to develop in a continuous manner. Previous literature on strategy and organisational identity has put too much emphasis on the stability/change dichotomy. The present study shows that it is possible to maintain continuity even in times of change. Such continuity can be established by avoiding strategic action that is perceived as disruptive with regard to self-understanding and by providing interpretations of the past that make developments over time appear as free from ruptures. Self-undertsanding is hence an inherently historical phenomenon. Empirically, this study is based on in-depth case studies of strategy processes in two large Swedish companies, namely the truck manufacturer Scania and the bank Handelsbanken. In each of the companies, three strategic themes in which organisational self-understanding has become particularly salient are studied.
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| 19. |
- Bruns, Volker
(författare)
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Who receives bank loans? A study of lending officers' assessments of loans to growing small and medium-sized enterprises
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis explores factors that influence lending officers' assessments of credit requests from growing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Building on asymmetric information theory, factors identified in previous research are grouped into the theoretical categories of risk-assessment, risk-alignment, and risk-shifting. Hypotheses are developed as to what influences lending officers' credit assessments. In addition, it is hypothesized that risk-taking proclivity interacts with other variables. A conjoint experiment involving 114 lending officers is used to test the hypotheses, which are, by and large, supported by the data.Furthermore, the study investigates how individual differences in experience among lending officers affect the credit assessments, e.g., more experienced lending officers use more sophisticated decision policies involving interactions. When the results from the experiments were compared with the lending officers' self-perceived assessments, it was discovered that lending officers have limited insight into their own credit assessments.The findings of this study have implications for SMEs, lending officers, and lending organizations. The results can assist SMEs to better tailor loan applications. Banks can use the results to make comparisons with their existing credit guidelines, which could assist them in improving their decision-making.The three theoretical categories identified provide a foundation for future research on bank lending to SMEs. The developed model can facilitate empirical research on bank lending under asymmetric information by providing a structure and categorizing previous research into relevant categories.
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| 20. |
- Byusa, Vincent
(författare)
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Money demand, real effective exchange rates, and uncertainty
- 2024
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This PhD thesis consists of three distinct but interrelated research papers that collectively explore critical aspects of money demand, real effective exchange rates behavior, and uncertainty in different contexts. The first paper examines the nature of money demand in Rwanda and the rationale for the country’s monetary policy shift to inflation targeting in 2019, providing evidence of long-run money demand stability despite uncertainties affecting the global economy, and challenging the view that monetary aggregates should have no role in Rwanda’s monetary policy. The second paper investigates the complex effects of grant revenues on real effective exchange rates in Sub-Saharan African countries, revealing the outcomes of short-run depreciation and long-run appreciation. The last paper assesses how exchange rate regime choice affects the degree and persistence of real effective exchange rate misalignments, showing that, relative to a floating exchange rate regime, fixed and intermediate regimes effectively limit misalignment size, although with higher persistence. Together, these papers offer nuanced insights into the interaction between the money market, uncertainty, external grants, and exchange rate regime, underscoring the need for careful policy consideration to ensure economic stability and competitive currency values.
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| 21. |
- Bäckvall, Lisa, 1980-
(författare)
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The coexistence of family, ownership, and business : Conceptualizing entanglement and business family ownering
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This research engages with the topic of business family ownership through an ethnographically inspired study of business governance-related activities constructed as family members’ business-owning practices relationally and over time. In short, it is about what business families do when owning businesses and how this form of owning can be conceptualized.Corporate governance dominates understandings of ownership and business where ownership is constructed in a particular manner (individualistic, passive, and public) (e.g. La Porta et al., 1999; Robé, 2011). This is also (e.g. Breton-Miller & Miller, 2009; Le Breton-Miller et al., 2011), the theory in use in the family business research field in terms of governance research (e.g. Aguilera & Crespi-Cladera, 2012). Governing in family businesses has also been conceptualized as overlapping spheres of family, ownership, and business/management (Gersick et al., 1997). This study embraces the coexistence of family, ownership, and business/management as entanglement, which is lacking in corporate governance research in general and in family business studies in particular. By extending alternative framings on ownership and family governance (e.g., Brundin et al., 2010; Nordqvist 2016) via firstly an interpretative paradigm and secondly the practice turn, this phenomenon, business family ownership, is thirdly constructed through one of many possible practice theories – social praxeology (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992). This theory contributes to create conditions for a renewed understanding of owning as doing within a family business, relationally and over time. Social praxeology not only directs attention to relationality but also to individual and collective embodiment, where the central concepts are capital, field, habitus, and practical sense. Bourdieu’s social praxeology acknowledges a relational ontology and epistemology in his particular version of structuralism interpretivism. In this study it implies that the first and second order structuers are contructed via a reflective field reading.Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to explore and construct the coexistence of family, ownership, and business/management through a social praxeology reading and conceptualizing the business family ownership, as done together and over time.An ethnographically inspired study (through interviews, shadowing, and participation in corporate events) of business- and governance-related activities (such as company board meetings, top management meetings, and product development meetings) generates an understanding of the entanglement of family, ownership, and business/management during an ongoing change of CEO in a family business. Drawing upon a structural reading in line with Bourdieu’s social praxeology (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992), four broad business family ownership practices are constructed: the practice of choosing the next CEO, the practice of calculating, the practice of tasting, and the practice of joking. The first empirical chapter is a reading of capital forms and their structure and distribution within the business family (structures of the first order). In this chapter, the construct of family, along with Bourdieu’s assumptions, is introduced. The second empirical chapter is a reading of both first- and second-order structures, where the family habitus concept is combined with the business dimension in the change of CEO. The third empirical chapter is dominated by the reading of the second-order structures, where the practices of counting, tasting, and joking are constructed as business family owning. These business family ownership practices form an understanding of the entangled nature of a particular family business.This study contributes to generating conditions for understanding business family ownership as private, collective, and transgenerational in contrast to the well-entrenched corporate governance view characterized above. Hence it challenges the dominant views of ownership as property rights that emphasize separateness incorporated in the Gersick et al. (1997) model by instead conceptualizing the coexistence of family, ownership, and management/business as entanglement. Towards a distinction through the conceptualization of entanglement, the family and ownership categories are primarily constructed as a collective subjective corpus operating as structuring structures within a business family field. Business family ownering is a way of governing where the body and its sense reproduce and refine the structures in a family business, forming a specific cultural business family capital. Accordingly, with family habitus, owning turns into ownering. Structuring structure with the particularities of an owner family, relationally inhabited by dominated and dominating agents, forms a business family ownership as ownering, characterized by inertia and relationality.
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| 22. |
- Caccamo, Marta
(författare)
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Cross-boundary knowledge work in innovation : Understanding the role of space and objects
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation studies the topic of cross-boundary knowledge work from the perspective of sociomateriality. Cross-boundary knowledge work refers to the collaboration of actors belonging to different social worlds to achieve shared knowledge outcomes. Sociomateriality is a theoretical perspective that acknowledges the role of objects and spaces in organizational life. The empirical field of collaborative innovation provides a context for this dissertation.Cross-boundary knowledge work is an important topic given the emergence of novel challenges that require collaboration across disciplines and organizations. Innovating across social and organizational boundaries is a demanding task that calls for new ways of working. Working in new ways refers to using new organizational models and engaging in new organizational practices. To address the increasing need for cross-boundary knowledge work, this dissertation turns to the design of objects and spaces as a defining aspect of organizational life.The overarching goal of the dissertation is to understand what role spaces and objects (physical and digital) play within cross-boundary knowledge work. The dissertation is structured into four papers. Paper 1 builds the foundation of the dissertation by providing an extensive literature review about boundary objects—a theoretical construct that denotes objects that enable knowledge-based collaboration across diverse social worlds. The subsequent empirical papers study cross-boundary knowledge dynamics in three different collaborative innovation contexts. Paper 2 addresses how boundary objects can be designed to enable knowledge integration during interdisciplinary corporate hackathons. Paper 3 shows how innovation spaces and the objects that are part of them support collaborative innovation through knowledge integration and the development of new practices. Paper 4 conceptualizes startup accelerators as boundary spaces that lead to the creation of different types of knowledge communities.This study makes important contributions to the fields of cross-boundary knowledge work, sociomateriality, and collaborative innovation. First, the four papers show that cross-boundary knowledge work needs to consider other dynamics happening at the boundaries within interdisciplinary and interorganizational contexts. For instance, the creation of a shared identity appears to be a fundamental aspect to consider in order to achieve knowledge goals. Second, this dissertation deepens our understanding of the actual practices afforded by objects and spaces within collaborative settings. Each paper strives to provide an in-depth account of how individual objects, systems of objects, and spaces support knowledge work. Third, this dissertation offers a relevant theoretical perspective to illustrate the challenges involved in collaborative innovation, at the same time suggesting how material infrastructure may help collaborating actors achieve shared knowledge outcomes. Finally, innovation managers can find relevant advice on how to leverage the built environment to enhance their practice.
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| 23. |
- Casanovas, Inés
(författare)
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Online Education in Universities : Moving from Individual Adoption to Institutionalisation of an Information Technology Innovation
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis describes and analyses the move from individual adoption to institutionalisation of an information technology innovation: online education in universities. The study focuses on the processes that took place within two universities, one in Sweden and the other in Argentina, regarding online education adoption and the organisational changes developed.The aim is to contribute to the understanding of individual and organisational strategies for the institutionalisation of the innovation. To achieve this aim, three research questions were posed. The first focused on the way in which teachers influence the adoption processes. The next addressed the changes and interactions at the individual and institutional levels resulting from these processes. The third question deepened into the methodological practices that can harmonise stakeholders‟ objectives and the conflicting interests regarding online education initiatives. Innovation theory, complemented with organisational theories provided the foundation for the description and analysis of the information technology innovation and the adoption processes.The results of analysing and interpreting the collected data from the two universities in two different countries (Sweden and Argentina) showed that the adoption processes appeared to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. The iterative nature of the appropriation and the constant “newness” of the information technology innovation may be plausible explanations for the phenomenon. Though the change has not yet become an integral part of the formal core of the institutions, it has been a great achievement considering the universities‟ structure, culture and resources.The contributions provide complementary and pluralistic insights into the research field of Information Systems, for both theory and practice, as well as into higher education managers‟ decision-making. Furthermore, the knowledge contribution of the thesis could be applied to implementation of information technology innovations in other organisations with similar characteristics as the studied higher education institutions. Such characteristics are, for example, to be complex and knowledge intensive.Interactions at macro and micro organisational levels could be modelled as the cyclic linkage between sensemaking outcomes and institutionalized structures. A higher level of theorization resulted in a meta-theory model to describe and explain the linkage itself within the perspective of adaptive structuration theory.Regarding practice, scholar-engaged research allowed conflicting interests to be reconciled by changing the existing practices through sensemaking and negotiation among stakeholders in an ongoing implementation. As an overall conclusion, online education is still far from being fully institutionalised. After four years of technological and contextual changes during the research development, a positive shift can be seen in teachers‟ attitude towards online education. They show more confidence in working with constantly improved virtual environments. Nevertheless, there are still key factors that need to be faced regarding online education adoption and institutionalisation. These factors are of a strategic nature and the way to handle them seems to be more political than technological or pedagogical.
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| 24. |
- Cestino, Joaquín
(författare)
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Written news at the crossroads : Entrepreneurial processes of reproduction and novelty in an institutional field in crisis
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation explores entrepreneurial processes in an institutional field incrisis. It is based on the inductive reinterpretation of four original papers that, combined, study activities of individuals searching for solutions to organizational problems in incumbent and startup newspapers. Building on an integrative framework of compatible concepts in entrepreneurship and institutional theory, and foregrounding the role of Bourdieu’s notion of capital, this thesis provides answers to how actors’ capitals mediate mechanisms of reproduction and novelty. Based on the analysis of multiple cases situated in a macro-level shift characterized by the transformation of the material environment, this work finds how—despite the aleatory and materialistic origins of written news norms and concepts, and their failing economic traction—entrepreneurial processes in all types of newspapers reproduce structural templates. In relatively affluent incumbents, reproduction happens because, in their search for solutions to losses of capital, actors interpret imported ideas within the meaning structure provided by existing norms and concepts, and day-to-day activities—“decoupled from innovation”—do not change significantly. Also, at the moment that these new activities generate short-term (albeit small) relative capital gains, as problems seem to wane, individuals unravel their search for solutions, reinforcing reproduction. In particularly deprived newcomers, the importation of innovative ideas can even be averted upfront by the organization of unrelated-to-the-venture supportive activities that generate unrelated-to-the-venture economic capital—a condition that shields these ventures from market demands and avoids exit scenarios. The “sheltered conformity” of daily activities in these organizations also results in reproduction. Yet, not all the entrepreneurial processes this thesis identifies contribute to the reproduction of existing institutional arrangements. Instances of significant difference in organizational structures can be forged in a distinct experience of constraints resulting from severe capital scarcity. A combination of absence of economic capital and moderate-to-low levels of cultural and social capital, as they are defined by the field, inhibits common solutions to problems. When actors find that freely available inputs accumulated in their personal biographies work, these inputs become “situated new forms of capital”. As they work, significantly different activities, partly decoupled from templates in the field, are incorporated in the structure of these organizations. Because it is existing ideals in the field that fuel resource-deprived entrepreneurs to sustain efforts, institutional arrangements do play a role in their own change.By offering empirical support to the central role of the personal experience of capital constraints and situated redefinitions of capital in processes of institutional reproduction and divergence, this thesis complements interpretations of institutional contradictions: Rather than starting from the coexistence of different templates that actors can alternatively employ at intersections of structures, this study explores early endogenous processes by which new norms and concepts enter existing fields, reinterpreting resources in them. These findings provide additional insights into questions related to the origin of ideas, emergent processes of decoupling and to definitions of an institutionalized field in crisis and organizational novelty. This research also contributes to entrepreneurship within sights into how alertness and discovery transpire. When focusing on institutional templates and problem-solving activities of ordinary actors, entrepreneurial action—even in an institutional field in crisis—can contribute to the reproduction of the status quo. And when significant differences happen, because they can result from a distinct experience of resource constraints, they may appear in humble beginnings that contrast those chronicled in later stages of change by institutional entrepreneurship theory. Additionally, this thesis adds to entrepreneurial resourcefulness by unbundling the process by which bricolage produces outcomes that depart from its institutional environment. In my findings, bricoleurs do not blatantly violate norms and concepts, and yet they can bring divergent organizational novelty to their working solutions. In fact, the efforts of entrepreneurial bricoleurs are largely sustained by the predetermined meaning of inputs and institutionally conforming ideals in ways that, I suggest, bring the concept of bricolage closer to its original definition by Lévi-Strauss.
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| 25. |
- Correa, Miquel
(författare)
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On new homes and green lands : Three microeconometric essays as if urban costs and rural sustainability mattered
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis is structured as a compendium of three self-contained articles, all single-authored. In the first paper, I analyze the effect of a mortgage cap, a policy implemented as a macroeconomic prudential measure by the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority in 2010, on the likelihood of the young adult population purchasing a house in Sweden. I find that the purchasing rate decreases less for the wealth-constrained individuals in relation to the wealth-unconstrained during a four-year period after the implementation of the policy.In the second paper, I examine how experiencing working from home (WFH) during the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to out-migration of the working-age population of large Swedish cities. Using register microdata of individuals in the period 2015–2021, the results show that the remote work experiment significantly increased the likelihood of moving out of large cities and of moving to the hinterlands compared to the usual internal migration flows before the pandemic.Finally, I analyze the role of geographical and cognitive proximity in the decision to adopt organic farming in Sweden for the period 2010–2016. I find that the nearby presence of earlier adopters in a parish influences current adoption, indicating the existence of proximity effects in the diffusion of environmentally sustainable technologies across a diversity of farming industries in Sweden. The effect also becomes more pronounced when farmers share cognitive similarities, defined as per type of farming industry, in particular for the dairy sector and mixed farming activities.
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